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| Tudor Tutorial |
| Dating back to medieval England, this beloved style offers rambling romanticism, handcrafted elegance, and all the comforts of home |
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Built in Lancashire, England, in the late 15th
century, Agecroft Hall was dismantled, shipped, and painstakingly
reassembled in Richmond, Virginia, during the 1920s. Today, the home is a
museum.
(Photo: Courtesy of Agecroft Hall) |
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The earliest sections of the 12-room Shottery,
England, cottage where William Shakespeare's wife was born were built
before the 15th century. Note the thatched roof and eyebrow dormers.
(Photo: Michael Maslan Historic Photographs/Corbis) |
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Cheshire, England's Little Moreton Hall, which
dates from the 16th century, is considered a classic example of a Tudor-era
timber-frame house. Shown here is the gatehouse for the main hall.
(Photo: Clay Perry/Corbis) |
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by Logan Ward
Sure, you recognize a Tudor house when you see it.
The half-timbering and steeply pitched roof are dead giveaways. Trying to
pin down just what gives a fine Tudor home its charm, however, is not so
easy. Maybe it's the rambling layout or the rich, earthy materials.
Maybe it's the home's connection with this country's
Anglo-Saxon heritage. "The whole thing with Tudor," says Yong
Pak, a partner in the Atlanta-based residential design firm Pak Heydt and
Associates, "is, how do you make it real?"
By "real," Pak means the style's
early English roots. Emerging on the heels of the Gothic movement, the
Tudor style thrived during the reign of the Tudor monarchs, from Henry VII
in 1485 to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. As English carpentry came of
age, wealthy landowners traded the fortresslike character of Gothic castles
for more domesticated homes with brick and timber-and-stucco façades
and elegant rooms paneled in linenfold oak. These early examples grew
organically down through the generations, sprawling over the English
countryside. In the 19th century, William Morris, a proponent of the Arts
and Crafts movement, helped spark a Tudor revival in England that swept
this country a few decades later. During the roaring '20s, the style
became known as Stockbroker Tudor for its statement of conservative good
taste and its popularity among the new-monied set. Tudor homes tend to be asymmetrical, with
façades of dark timbers and stucco, brick, or limestone. Roofs are
steeply pitched and complex, with gable ends poking this way and that.
Massive chimneys crowned with chimney pots thrust skyward. Bays of casement
windows with diamond-paned leaded glass jut out from exterior walls.
Inside, the layout is also asymmetrical, with a central great room -- a
characteristic carried over from castle architecture -- anchoring a series
of smaller, more specifically functional rooms designated for dining,
sleeping, and reading. Today, homeowners are choosing the Tudor style as a
backlash against "McMansions." Instead of formal, look-at-me
homes with cavernous rooms and soaring ceilings, Tudors tend to be informal
and romantic, conjuring associations of aristocracy and unstudied wealth.
Just as they did during the early 20th-century Tudor explosion, these
houses add a patina of age to new neighborhoods, with a nod to our English
past. Whether they feature a classic half-timbered façade or a
limestone façade like the homes of the Cotswolds, the best
contemporary homes are about the quality of the experience rather than how
they look from the street. "There's a certain sublime feeling
you get from a Tudor house," says Pak. "Part of it is the
romance of the materials and craftsmanship, and part of it is the
coziness."
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